Episode Transcript
Alright, we're in Proverbs chapter 15 verse 10 tonight.
The title of the message is Rumble on the Roadway.
Rumble on the Roadway.
In tonight's proverb, we will be learning more about correction.
We've seen that topic come up in our proverbs, and those who experience it.
Solomon begins the proverb with that word correction.
And this word translated correction, we've seen it before, but to remind you, because there's different definitions, even though the We may use the same English word.
It may not always be the same Hebrew or Greek word translated into English.
So, to make sure we understand.
This word is based on a Hebrew root word that literally means to instruct by blows.
To instruct by blows.
In other words, to teach someone by hitting them, by smiting them.
And how many times have we heard someone or said ourselves, maybe it's a bully on the schoolyard or Maybe it's a disobedient child when a parent learns what a disobedient child has done, and they'll say, They'll get that belt and they'll say, I'm going to teach him a lesson he'll never forget, right?
Well, they get the belt out, or if they're on the schoolyard, they get their fist out.
I'm going to teach him a lesson he'll never forget.
So that's to instruct with blows.
That's literally what that is.
To teach someone a lesson.
By giving him a good old-fashioned whooping.
And how was that parent going to do this by instructing him with blows to the seat of his pants?
And that's the word correction here tonight.
And that's what God sometimes lovingly has to do to us, isn't it?
Do you know why?
Because our flesh needs correcting.
You have one force going one direction.
You're going to have a greater force pushing it in the right direction.
So you've got something going off the wrong direction here, you're going to have a greater force moving it over this way, or it's going to continue to go wrong.
So take your pen, if you would, and underscore the root word of the word correction, and that is correct.
So that word correction there, the first word in your proverb.
Just underscore the word correct out of correction.
Correction is for the purpose of causing someone to behave correctly.
Who before was behaving incorrectly.
But not all people respond to God's correction the same way, and that's what our proverb is about tonight.
You see, some people think God's correction, look back in your text, is grievous.
And that word grievous means bad.
So some people think God correcting them is a bad thing.
They don't like it.
After all, it's not pleasing to be told that you're wrong.
And it's certainly not pleasant getting a whooping.
But sometimes, again, it takes strong correction to teach our flesh the lesson we need to learn.
The flesh just won't learn without it.
When I was a kid, If I saw my friends outside, if I saw my friends outside or something fun was going on outside.
I had this urge come over me and I would think in my mind, I need to put my shoes on before I go outside.
But the desire to go out and play with my friends was so much stronger than my desire to take the time to put my socks and shoes on, as I should, because I knew I had graspers.
And I mean, we can say, oh, I went around barefooted all the time when I was a kid.
Well, that's fine.
But nobody likes grass burrs, and we had them.
And then in the summertime, when you get on the asphalt, it'd burn your feet, especially when they're tender feet like mine.
So I would always just run outside.
And I'd play football or baseball.
We had a side lot, an empty lot, and a lot of the kids would come over to my house to play.
Because we had that lot and it was good for any sport you wanted.
Had a tether ball pole, man, we had it basketball goal and And I'd go out there and I'd I'd play And the problem was I'd be in the middle of playing and I'd get one of those big old grass birds stuck deep in my foot, and I knew that that was a chance. and I'd get it lodged in there, or I'd get my skin burned by that asphalt.
And it wasn't pleasant at all.
But you know what it did?
To this day, to this day, I still put my shoes on before I go outside.
It taught me a lesson.
The pain of having to have the grass burr in my foot and walking around and doing like this.
And of course, when you're little, At first you have to have someone pull it out.
After a while you get big enough to pull it out yourself.
But it's never fun.
So that pain taught me a lesson.
Now I put my shoes on before I go outside and and but it wasn't pleasant, but I thank God for it.
And now but before I mow the lawn Before I check the mail, before I run errands uptown, I put my shoes on.
And like that sticker burr and like that hot asphalt, God's correction is unpleasant at times.
But it results in us learning a valuable life lesson.
If we'll let it teach us, it'll teach us a lesson.
Hebrews chapter 12, verse 11 says, Now no chastening, and that means correction.
No correction for the present.
That means at the time when you're getting corrected, when the graspers in the foot, when the belt is being applied to the seat of your pants.
No chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous.
I got lots of whippings growing up.
My mom has a wonderful Memory where she has forgotten everything wrong I've done.
So she'll tell you how wonderful I was, but I remember the whoopings.
And they were never joyous.
I never, when she got through, I just never thought.
Man, that was good.
I just never thought that.
So the Bible says for the present at that time They never seem to be joyous, but there's our word tonight, grievous.
See?
At that time when we're going through it, it seems to be grievous.
Nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness. unto them which are exercised thereby, unto them which took the correction, and learned the lesson they received by the blows they got.
That calls them to have the peaceable fruit of righteousness.
What does that mean?
It means when you do right, you've got peace.
When you do wrong, you have trouble.
And if I did right and I went outside, I had peace.
I had no grass burrs.
If I did wrong, I left my socks and shoes off and went and played in that sticker-infested lot. then I got what was coming to me.
And if I was a fool, I wouldn't learn my lesson.
And I'd never have the peace.
Of the lesson that I learned.
So, God's correction may seem bad at the time, but it's always for our good.
It's not going to be joyous, but it's going to be beneficial.
And nevertheless, his correction seems bad, it seems grievous, look back in your text, unto him that forsaketh the way.
Now, I don't want to be spanked by God, but I'd much rather be corrected by God than God allow me to go on being wrong.
Because the harm.
From persisting in going the wrong direction is a lot worse Than the temporary displeasure of being corrected when God's putting you back in the right direction.
So it says, unto him that forsaketh the way, meaning unto him, meaning unto us.
Specific type of person.
It seems grievous unto one person, but not unto the other.
To another person, it doesn't seem grievous.
But it seems grievous unto him that forsakes the way.
And remember, the way is speaking about the roadway that God has paved for us to travel with His Word.
So, to a person that does not forsake the way, God's correction is not grievous.
But to him that does forsake the way, it is grievous to him.
So understand correction is not pleasant to anybody.
But it is good for everybody.
And we'll repeat that again.
Correction is not pleasant to anybody.
But it is good for everybody, all depending on how someone views the way.
So, what determines if I perceive God's correction as good or bad?
It depends on how I view the way He's given me to travel.
Someone who forsakes God's way obviously considers God's way to be a bad thing, right?
And if someone views God's way as a bad thing, then they're going to view any attempt by God or by man to return them, that is to correct them back to that way.
That God gave them, they're going to consider that correction as a bad thing.
I mean, if I don't want to walk this road, and so I decide I'm going to go this direction.
If someone comes over here and tries to force me back to the road I don't want to walk on, I'm going to think, man, y'all leave me alone.
That's irritating to me.
I want to go this way.
And so to the person that forsakes God's way, when God or God's representatives, God through his representatives, through a loving parent, through a loving Christian or a pastor, And they're trying to move them back in the way God has for them, they're going to perceive that as being bad.
They're not going to like it.
They're going to bristle up.
They're going to get angry at you.
Because they don't like God's way.
Now, for a person to have forsaken the way, think about it, to forsake the way.
That means the person would have first had to have been on the way in order to forsake it.
That word forsake means to loosen, to untie.
So, by our very nature, you say, well, when were we on the way?
Was everyone born on the way?
Well, by nature, God put us on the way by design.
Okay?
So in Adam, all we like sheep have gone astray.
But by our nature, We're naturally designed for that way.
By God's nature, we are bound to that way.
Through our design, Of God creating us to be guided and led by His Holy Spirit down the way He paid for us to travel.
By nature, we're bound to that, to His design.
By nature's law, we're also, we're not just naturally bound by God's design, we're legally bound by God's law.
So now you understand the word loosen, right?
To forsake.
So If we're bound to hear by nature, we're bound to hear by law, then when we forsake that, that means we're loosening Our bonds from God's way.
So let me explain that to you here.
Romans 2:14 through 15.
God's law, again, has bound us to the way He created us to travel.
By our very nature.
Romans 2:14, for when the Gentiles which have not the law do by, what's that word?
Nature.
Do by nature the things contained in the law.
These having not the law are a law unto themselves, which show the work of the law written in their hearts.
Now there's your nature.
Again, you've got natural law.
You've got God's work in our hearts.
It says, which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience.
Also bearing witness, and their thoughts, the meanwhile, accusing or else excusing one another.
People are designed to be on God's way.
Every person on this planet was created with a conscience.
Was created with a natural binding, being naturally bound to the way that God has paid for us.
We're bound by nature, we're bound by conscience.
Written in our hearts.
But along with that design of us being bound to God's way, That same design gave us the freedom to loosen ourselves from that natural law, as devastating as it is, and to loosen ourselves from the conscience that God has given us.
That's also in God's design.
The only way two men can lie together like a man and woman, is the way Paul put it.
If those men loose themselves from the obvious laws of nature, would you all agree with that?
They have to obviously see the laws of nature.
You have a nut, you have a bolt.
They go together.
Right?
You got two bolts, two nuts, they don't go together.
That's not being mean.
That's not being hateful.
That's just being observant.
Clearly, they were designed to go together.
You've got a man and a woman, they're designed to go together.
You've got two women, they're not.
You got two men, they're not.
It's not being hateful, it's being observant.
And to set that.
Obvious truth aside, you have to loosen yourself From right reasoning, you have to loosen yourself from the obvious design that's staring you in your face.
You have to loosen yourself from the way that God's made you by natural design to travel, and you've got to loosen yourself from the conscience that by nature will say no.
I remember when I was a boy, we had a Hispanic man that had been going to our church.
And I wanted to learn Spanish back then.
I still haven't mastered Spanish.
Hey, I write who did I do that recording for Sunday?
Esther?
Did you do an answer and be back?
You better get Brother Shepherd to listen to it, give you an answer.
So she's learning Spanish.
And so this Mexican, young Mexican man, came over to my house one time, and me and my little brother were there alone.
And I remember that little Mexican man starting to flirt with my little brother and touch him on the leg.
And I remember just a young young man myself.
I remember thinking, I'm going to beat this guy up.
Now, is that wrong for me to think that way?
No.
And I'm not violent.
I'm really not.
I'm a very peaceful person.
I don't like conflict.
But man, you go touching some man, go touch some little boy in front of me.
I'm fixing to find something used for Big Daddy other than drinking out of him.
You know what I mean?
And I got on to him.
I said, don't you touch him.
And finally, we got rid of him.
I got him out of the house.
That was nature in me.
It was so natural to me.
Because I knew it was wrong.
It was natural to resist it.
I remember one time my My mom had a man come over to fix a ceiling fan in our living room that wasn't working.
And I was there at home with my mom in the living room.
And my mother told him, Yeah, this is the fan right here.
And she went to go do something else.
And she left me alone with the man in the living room.
And when I was left alone with that man, the man looked at me and said, Your mama's a pretty woman.
And right then, I could feel the anger well up in my heart.
And you know, the first thought that came to my mind, I'm telling my daddy, my daddy needs to know what this man said.
Nobody taught me that.
What caused that?
Well, it's because you're such a good boy, but you know, it's because that's God's nature written on our hearts.
It's a natural instinct, and you've got to loosen, you've got to physically work at that knot.
And loosen that knot.
God tied it tight, but He didn't put a padlock on it.
And you've got to work to loosen that knot and Finally cut yourself loose from it.
And the sad thing is, when people do, most of the time, they never get bound back.
They make that decision in like untying themselves from a dock in the middle of a storm that just gets swept out to a sea of death.
So, men like that and others who've loosed themselves from the natural way that God provided and that He declared to us in His Word, they find God's way to be a God. uh God's correction and His way to be a grievous thing to them.
So it is it's so contrary to their their wicked desires.
It is grievous to the man who forsakes or loosens himself from the way.
Look back in your text.
And he that hateth reproof, he that hateth reproof.
And this is the same man here now.
It's grievous to him, so he hates it.
You see where it's going?
This is not talking about a different person.
He that hateth reproof, and reproof meaning to be made right.
We're looking at the word reproof here.
It means to be made right.
How many of y'all want to be made right?
I do too.
How many of y'all want to spend eternity?
Making mistakes, thinking wrong, doing wrong, aging, getting worse.
Man, I want to be right inside and out, head to toe.
I mean, I realize I'm wrong in many, many ways in reproof It is to be made right.
It's God's literal correction where He corrects you and takes what's incorrect and then makes it.
Correct.
He makes someone right.
And whoever hates the thought of God making them right, look back in your text, shall die.
Shall die.
God's reproof is given to make people right, to keep them from dying.
You see that?
That's what we're learning here in the text.
It's not that God says, oh, I've got a bunch of rules and they're not following them.
Is that God is the giver of life.
He created life.
God is good.
God is right.
He wants his creation to be as he created it to be, good and right.
And God Gives us reproof.
He tries to correct us to make us right, to keep us from dying.
Here's a kingdom truth for you tonight.
Because all life came from a righteous God, at the end of the day, wrong men can't live.
And right men can't die.
Oh man, that's powerful.
Listen again.
Because all life came from a righteous God.
At the end of the day, wrong men can't live and right men can't die.
I like where the Bible says, Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Justification.
Is the gateway to glorification.
You know what glorification is?
It's being made right.
That's all it is.
Justification makes us right in the eyes of the law.
And then glorification makes us right practically.
One, the blood of Christ makes us right legally.
The reproof of God, the correction of God makes us right experientially, practically.
Do you know what the rapture is going to be?
It's going to be the greatest, most instant, perfect reproof ever experienced by man.
The rapture.
You remember what the Bible says we should not all sleep?
Does it say we shall, behold, I show you a mystery, we shall not all sleep, but we should all go to heaven?
Does it say that?
It says we shall all be what?
Changed.
Why do we have to be changed?
Because there's a whole lot wrong with us.
And wrong men can't live.
And God's got to make us right.
And by making us right, we can't die.
Right men can't die.
Thank God for that.
So he that hateth God's reproof, it says, shall die.
The gospel, therefore, here's the purpose of the gospel: the gospel makes us right.
So it can make us live.
See that?
The gospel makes us right so it can make us live.
The gospel ensures that all men Will either be made right and live, or they will remain wrong and die.
That's what the cross of Jesus Christ does.
For me to believe on Christ as my Savior, I have to understand I'm wrong.
I have to.
And to understand I'm wrong, naturally there's going to be a desire for me to be right.
I believe on Christ as my Savior.
My faith in what he's done for me on the cross makes me right legally the moment I believe.
And then God promises that when Jesus comes back, he'll make me right practically, right?
I'll be changed.
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, I'll be changed.
So the gospel will either, it will assure that all men will either be made right and live or they'll remain wrong and die.
So people who hate being made right shall surely die.
Now suppose, we'll close with this, suppose you're going on a road trip.
To your favorite destination spot.
Mine would be Soulman's BBQ, but that's not very far away, so I have to use one of your destination spots.
Now if you're driving, do you want to drive on the wrong side of the road or do you want to drive on the right side of the road?
Huh?
The right side of the road.
What happens if you drive on the wrong side of the road?
What's going to happen to you?
What happened on.
To a woman on Highway 49, the toll road in Tyler.
They're getting killed over there all the time on that toll road.
Don't know what it is.
She hit someone head on.
Boom.
It happens all the time on that toll road entirely.
If you're on the wrong side of the road, boom, you're going to hit someone on the right side of the road eventually.
And you're going to get hurt.
And so, if we're on a road trip, if we care about living, then we want to be on the right side of the highway.
And because the Department of Transportation knows the dangers of being on the wrong side of the highway, they often put these grooves near the center stripe.
And sometimes we'll put them on the shoulder too.
And you'll be driving down the road nice and smooth, listening to the radio, daydreaming.
And you'll start drifting, you go, you can like that.
You'll go this direction like that.
How many of y'all Like traveling on those little rumble strips on the road?
I don't.
Do you know what happens when you start to feel them?
You pull back the right way.
Do you know what that is?
That's correction.
It's correction to keep you from going the wrong way, to make you right so you won't die.
That's all God's doing.
And when we're going down the road like that, I'll tell you, when I was 15 years old.
I went on a long road trip to Georgia with my brother-in-law.
And we went to a church camp.
My sister was going to sing that week.
And so I went on a long road trip.
I was 15 years old, and I split the time driving with my brother-in-law, who was older than me.
And on the way back, it was raining.
And it was quiet.
My brother-in-law, he's from Louisiana, so he fell asleep, you know.
And he's asleep.
And man, I started getting sleepy.
I kid you not.
I'm going down the road.
I started dreaming going down the high going down the interstate.
I could see people walking across the road who weren't there.
I was doing this.
And as I'm doing this, I felt like that on that center, and it startled me.
Boy, I pulled right back.
I rolled that window down.
I got me some rain on my hand.
I put it all over my face.
By the way, the best thing to do is not do that.
The best thing to do is pull off the road.
Get out, stretch, walk around, take a nap if you can.
But doing that.
I learned later in the highway patrol, they taught us how to overcome highway hypnosis.
That's what's called highway hypnosis.
And this fellow right here.
Thanks God for those little corrections in the roadway.
Because it probably saved both of our lives that night.
That someone cared.
To think to put the extra expense into that pavement when they constructed that highway.
And God cares too.
So when God paved the road for us to walk, He took the extra care to work correction into it for our conscience to go, that's wrong, go back.
For pastors and parents and teachers and the like to try to push people back But you know what?
I would have been a big, big fool if I would have felt and I would have thought Why can't those people leave those grooves out of the highway?
They make me so mad, I'd have been a fool.
And if I Decided to ignore them and to loose myself from them and go on a cross, and I die.
So never despise God's correction.
Because it was put there, because he loves you so much to make you right so you can live.
And oh, I feel sorry for all the people in this world who worked so desperately hard.
To untie that loving knot he's bound them with.
Father, thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you for binding our conscience.
Thank you for binding us with nature.
And guiding us with your word and loving us all the way home till we see you again.
Help us to have the right attitude. and to live life viewing your correction with thankfulness, being afraid so we won't go across the line.
Lest we experience it, being grateful when we do go across a line because we've been driven back.
In Jesus' precious name, amen.
